[or-roots] on the relative cost of Ancestry.com

[Leslie Chapman]

I must admit that the point of the relative (pardon the pun) cost of
Ancestry.com versus doing the leg work yourself for these records was not a
factor I had really considered. Ironically I just started doing some poking
around to see what I could come up with for someone on the Wheeler list and
stumbled across the following interesting sliding cost scale for getting
info out of New York Vital Records;

*	*	*

What is the fee for a genealogy copy?
The standard fee for a genealogy copy is $22.00 - This includes a copy of
the certificate, a three-year search of the index, the retrieval and
re-filing of the microfilm/microfiche and either a copy of the record or a
no record report. When more than a three-year search is requested, the fee
is higher.

Period Searched Fee
1 to 3 years $22.00
4 to 10 years $42.00
11 to 20 years $62.00
21 to 30 years $82.00
31 to 40 years $102.00
41 to 50 years $122.00
51 to 60 years $142.00
61 to 70 years $162.00
71 to 80 years $182.00
81 to 90 years $202.00

*	*	*	*

You wouldn't have to pay for very many searches in their Vital records where
you didn't have at least some idea of the dates for the person you are
looking for before Ancestry would start to look like a pretty good deal.

I guess the key issues are whether you can afford thier prices, (my wife
usually frowns on any significant expenditure of money on the "dead
relatives") and whether you can find the information elsewhere.

On that latter I have availed myself of the generousity of some of the folks
on the list several times for info I had been unable to find elsewhere, but
if I had not had that resource I still would not have been able to justify
the expense of a subscription for the amount of info I have been unable to
finde elsewhere at this point.

I think some of this is related to how serious I am about this, while I try
to do "good" genealogy, I am not, at this time, locked into doing bonifide
"two original sources for every fact" and "every important life fact" filled
out genealogy. I have hundreds of people in my family file that are still
just a name. Many of those are that way, not because I am too cheap to go to
ancestry, or because Ancestry didn't have the info, but they are that way
just "because."

Hopefull I will live long enough and be sufficiently situated to someday go
back and fill in a lot of those blank spaces, but if not I don't begrudge
Ancestry.com their preventing me from doing so because they need to maintain
thier profit margin.

I can tell you I certainly don't work for free.

Les